Just Like the Dreamers
by Rainchild
Summary: Subtle HarryRon. Darkfic with torture. Harry must save the world, and Ron must save Harry.


**Title:** Just Like the Dreamers  
**Author:** Rainchild  
**Rating:** R for **violence**  
**Warnings:** torture, subtle Harry/Ron  
**Disclaimer:** Contrary to popular belief, I am not JK Rowling in disguise. I do not own Harry Potter, his world, or any of the characters therein.  
**Author's Notes:** Thanks greatly to almond909 for the beta job. I wrote this two years ago and am just now getting around to submitting it to somewhere besides the harry and ron livejournal community.  
**Summary:**Subtle Harry/Ron.Darkfic with torture. Harry must save the world, and Ron must save Harry.

Harry's head hits the back of the dungeon wall as he arches his back in pain, and his wrists chafe in the rough metal shackles, but he doesn't notice. It's _Crucio_ again. _Crucio_ for hours upon hours. As an especially sharp wave of pain stabs its way down Harry's body, he slips out of this world.

---

Harry can't see them, but he senses them - shapes shifting around him. Their emotions overwhelm him - sadness and anxiety. Some are bitterly joyous in their victory; others mourn what they have lost. Hermione's tears track through the dirt and blood coating her face and hands. Her hair, once bouncy and glowing, now hangs limply over her eyes. Ron, who really ought to be comforting Hermione, is too lost in his own anguish to see her pain.

Harry imagines it in his mind's eye - the Death Eaters rising, their darkness spreading over wizard and muggle world alike. This is what will happen if Harry doesn't win, if he gives in to Voldemort.

---

When the vision fades away, Harry is left alone with Voldemort, still chained to the dungeon wall. _Crucio_ has permeated every muscle in his body, but Harry knows it will not go on forever. Voldemort is much too elegant to endlessly torture Harry with one spell, and he knows far too many methods to stop here.

When Voldemort draws near him, wand transfigured to a glinting blade, Harry's eyes widen in fear, even though he knows it is not the end. This fear of death is a thousand times worse than anything Harry has ever felt before. He does not fear for his own life but for his friends and for faceless masses whose burnt bodies will line the countryside when he is gone and Voldemort is unstoppable.

The fear suffocates and blackens over him so that when Voldemort's blade draws over his skin, away from the fluttering artery in his neck, away from his pounding heart, the flooding relief blocks Voldemort's taunting voice and the pain in his body.

---

This time the emotions of the shifting shapes are not so sharp and do not overwhelm him so. Hermione stands in front of him, anxious and worried, but her feelings are dulled by time. Harry thinks he can still make out the burning lines that tears have blazed across Hermione's cheeks. Behind her, others move silently, gentle and caring, but without faces. Hermione sits beside him, reaching out with a cool hand. The cold connects with Harry's forehead and seeps into his entire body, restoring something he did know he had lost. This is not a vision of condemnation, mocking him for his weaknesses, Harry decides, but rather a vision of comfort, and Harry is filled with gratitude, for he could not have withstood anything else.

---

The battery surprises Harry. Even though he knows Voldemort was raised by muggles, he wouldn't have expected him to resort to their methods. But as the electricity courses through Harry's body, so different from the _Crucio_ Harry has become used to, yet with its own flavor of acidic burning, Harry begins to understand Voldemort's reasoning.

---

Now Ron is standing in front of him, his emotions too complex for even Harry to understand. Ron makes no move to come closer, but looks at Harry. And Ron is burning, burning, burning away the electricity and the _Crucio_ and the cuts crisscrossing Harry's chest and arms. Harry wonders idly if it is possible to fall into his gaze, to let Ron's fire surround and cocoon him, away from the dungeon and from Voldemort.

---

It is worse when Harry drops into the pain again because now Harry has been without it, in that other world. The sharpness and suddenness catch him unarmed, and it is a long while before the pain fades back into his bones, an undercurrent always with him. Harry decides the visions are much more a curse than a blessing, and shies from the next one, knowing they bring no real respite.

The lack of sleep and food has begun to dull Harry's awareness, and he is only vaguely conscious of the sound of bones cracking and shattering. He remembers that he is fighting for something, but he knows not what.

---

Lupin sits, reading the paper and drinking tea. Harry almost laughs at the normality of the scene. Lupin, Harry's last connection to his father and a kind and wise teacher in his own right. Harry knows he has wished not to see Lupin or any of them, but he is glad for his professor's quiet comfort all the same.

---

Prickles dance across Harry's sensitive skin, and Harry imagines that they will eat away all his flesh and body, so that he can die, which would be nice. Many moments pass before Harry acknowledges this thought, and when he does, a thousand colors and sensations flood back to him. The pricklings become sharp stabs, and Harry is thirsty, so thirsty, and tired. The elusive thought of something to fight for comes back to him in full color, and the faces of those who have visited him dance before his eyes. Harry banishes the thought of death immediately, but not before a quiet part within him desperately catches hold of the idea.

---

Time passes. Harry sees Hermione and Ron most often, sometimes they play chess, sometimes they talk to each other, sometimes they just sit. Hermione reads, and Ron snores. Others are there as well - Lupin and Luna and Ginny and other Weasleys, even Headmaster McGonagall. When Neville comes he talks to Harry, which none of the others do. In between all there is Voldemort, always Voldemort, and pain and fear. Harry hates the visions; they make him weak, vulnerable.

---

Heat rises up through Harry from the soles of his feet. He moves to jerk away, but he cannot, and his nerves jangle. It stops far sooner than it should, and when Harry finally opens his eyes, Voldemort is gone. This is the first moment Harry has been alone since it began, and he does not question it, preferring to collapse into an exhausted sleep.

---

Harry is awoken by Hermione and her cool hands. She removes shackles Harry had long since forgotten. Ron is not with her but farther off, and he is angry, so angry, burning red to Harry's eyes. Hermione gently pulls Harry's weight away from the wall, but the soles of Harry's feet are burnt beyond use, and his legs, too, crumple.

Everyone is there - Lupin, who should not be the last of his friends remaining, McGonagall, who should still be teaching Transfigurations instead of leading a school, Neville, whose parents should be able to recognize him, Ginny, who should not have been possessed by a murderer, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, who should not have watched sons die, Snape, Tonks, Moody, Shaklebolt, Fletcher, George, Luna. There are other ones there, too, darker ones with hooded faces who outnumber Harry's friends.

Harry is lying in Hermione's arms on the dungeon floor, and Voldemort stands in the center of all the confusion and spells and people. Harry does not know if his saviors are real or some part of Voldemort's torture, but Harry does know that Voldemort plans to kill them, those for whom he has fought so hard. It is not _fair_, and Harry wants so badly to protect them he can feel it surging through his veins, building into something great and powerful.

Voldemort stands there, and he laughs. The tide breaks through, and Harry can see nothing but green, everywhere.

---

Blackness, and then Harry knows he has failed, and they are gone, all gone, save Ron, who is nervously leaning over him, one hand against Harry's cheek. Harry knows Ron must have never touched him before because he has never felt this connection before, dragging him in. Ron bends down, and his lips are on Harry's.

Harry finds it odd that his mind has chosen to send him this vision, dragged from the most secret recesses of his mind, to comfort him. Harry thinks that while it may not be possible to fall into a gaze, it is entirely possible to fall into a person. Ron's offer of safety, so far removed from Voldemort's pain, tempts Harry, and Harry thinks he might let go, but there is still fight within him, and he pushes away at the last second.

---

Harry's head hits the back of the dungeon wall as he arches his back in pain, and his wrists chafe in the rough metal shackles, but he doesn't notice. It's _Crucio_ again. _Crucio_ for hours upon hours. He is still gasping from his encounter with Ron. Harry's mind cannot handle what he was about to do, and so he stops thinking entirely.

---

Ron visits him, as does Hermione, but slowly they fade away, and it has been a long time since Harry has seen anyone but Voldemort. Sometimes Harry is boiling hot, sometimes covered in sticky blood. Sometimes the pain is a simple spell, and Harry wonders how, if it is really not there at all, he can feel it so intensely.

Sometimes Harry feels water across his face and in his lungs. He is drowning, and in between his struggles for air he is reminded of the Second Task, which leads his mind to Ron, who is no longer there. And, just at the moment where Harry knows the water will reach up and engulf the very last of him, he wishes he could see Ron again, and knows that this time, he would leave the world behind and stay in peace forever.

---

Hermione's cool hand encircles Harry's wrist, and everyone is there. There are tears and sadness, and Harry thinks that they must know they are about to die. Each one comes up to Harry, whispering in his ear, touching his hand. Harry sees confusion and spells, and Voldemort, standing in the center of it all, laughing.

Ron is the last one; the others are still there, but farther off, waiting for death. Finally, even Ron turns to leave, but comes back at the last second to place a hand on Harry's cheek. Harry wants to scream at him to stop, to tell Ron he must stay to fight Voldemort. But Ron leans down to kiss Harry goodbye, and Harry has no strength left.

It is the ultimate betrayal, this surrender to darkness, leaving his friends to die by Voldemort's green light. Harry laughs at himself because somehow throughout it all he had always had hope, hope that he was special, that somehow he would be able to resist the torture and save the world. Harry whispers a faint apology to Ron and Hermione and everyone he has ever cared for because he hates for them to die by Voldemort's hand but he cannot stand up to the pain any longer, and he lets go, falling into himself.

"Ron?" he asks, and the cracked voice explodes loudly in Harry's ears as he tumbles backwards, and Ron leaps back in surprise.

---

Harry realizes that the bed sheets are tucked tightly under the bed, pining him down. He finds this odd because he always sleeps with the sheets wrapped all around him, even his head, except for a little hole to let air in. As a child, Harry found this the most effective deterrent against spiders and night bugs.

When Harry opens his eyes, he is blinded by the whiteness of the walls and ceiling, and Hermione's shriek of "Harry!" is painful on his eardrums, but Harry thinks that perhaps it is the most beautiful sound he has ever heard.

When Harry squints he can make out a blurry Hermione poking a familiar sleeping lump on the chair beside her. "Ron! Ron!" she whispers, not very quietly. "Ron, he's _awake_! Oh, Harry!"

At the sound of this name the sleeping lump comes alive, quaking violently and shaking off his loose blanket. The motion rocks the chair back, and for a second Harry thinks Ron might actually fly, but gravity prevails, and Ron goes tumbling backwards. Not long after, an orange-coated head peaks over the seat of the chair, grinning wildly. The smile on Hermione's face next to him shines just as bright.

Harry thinks he might laugh, if only he remembered how, and all he manages is a weak grin. But it must have been enough, for Hermione bursts into tears and launches herself at Harry, enveloping him in a hug, weeping and murmuring, "We thought we'd lost you, Harry. Oh, Harry" into his neck. Maybe later Harry will awkwardly pat her curls in apology, but he lacks the energy and contents himself to lie on the crisp bed. Hermione finally lets go, but she continues bouncing dangerously on her chair as though she might jump up and attack him again at any moment.

When Ron, shaking just as much as Hermione, extends his arm for a handshake and ends up catching Harry in an embrace all the same, that is when Harry finally realizes that this is real.

_You can leave this house, leave this town.  
Leave it all to me, or you'll never leave the ground.  
Look at that tiny screen's too small for you.  
I think you should learn to dream, just like the dreamers do._  
-Closer to Me, Dar Williams


End file.
